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Adam Smith's Moral Sentiments in Vanity Fair


Adam Smith's Moral Sentiments in Vanity Fair

Lessons in Business Ethics from Becky Sharp
Issues in Business Ethics, Band 49

von: Rosa Slegers

80,24 €

Verlag: Springer
Format: PDF
Veröffentl.: 17.09.2018
ISBN/EAN: 9783319987316
Sprache: englisch

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Beschreibungen

<p>According to Adam Smith, vanity is a vice that contains a promise: a vain person is much more likely than a person with low self-esteem to accomplish great things. Problematic as it may be from a moral perspective, vanity makes a person more likely to succeed in business, politics and other public pursuits. “The great secret of education,”&nbsp;Smith writes, “is to direct vanity to proper objects:” this peculiar vice can serve as a stepping-stone to virtue. How can this transformation be accomplished and what might go wrong along the way? What exactly <i>is</i> vanity and how does it factor into our personal and professional lives, for better and for worse?<br></p><div>This book brings Smith’s <i>Theory of Moral Sentiments</i> into conversation with William Makepeace Thackeray’s <i>Vanity Fair </i>to offer an analysis of vanity and the objects (proper and otherwise) to which it may be directed. Leading the way through the literary case study presented here<i> </i>is Becky Sharp, theambitious and cunning protagonist of Thackeray’s novel. Becky is joined by a number of other 19<sup>th</sup> Century literary heroines – drawn from the novels of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot – whose feminine (and feminist) perspectives complement Smith’s astute observations and complicate his account of vanity<i>.</i> The fictional characters featured in this volume enrich and deepen our understanding of Smith’s work and disclose parts of our own experience in a fresh way, revealing the dark and at times ridiculous aspects of life in Vanity Fair, today as in the past.</div><p></p><div></div>
Introduction.-&nbsp;A profile of Becky Sharp.-&nbsp;Chapter 1 – To be quiet and very much interested.-&nbsp;Chapter 2 – Educating the martial spirit.-&nbsp;Chapter 3 – Ambition, the poor man’s son, and the poor man’s daughter.-&nbsp;Chapter 4 – The self-estimation and self-command of a mighty conqueror.-&nbsp;Chapter 5 – Partial and impartial spectators in Vanity Fair.-&nbsp;Chapter 6 – An industrious knave becomes respectable.-&nbsp;Conclusion.
<p><b>Rosa Slegers</b> is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Babson College. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from Fordham University, an MBA from Babson College, and an MA in Literary Theory from the University of Leuven, Belgium.</p><div>Slegers’ scholarship and teaching integrate philosophy, literature, and management thinking to pursue questions at the intersection of ethics and aesthetics. Her first book,&nbsp;<i>Courageous Vulnerability</i>&nbsp;(Brill, 2011), draws on the&nbsp;philosophies of William James, Henri Bergson, and Gabriel Marcel to frame a cluster of&nbsp;moral and aesthetic attitudes in Marcel Proust’s <i>In Search of Lost Time</i>. Her second book,&nbsp;<i>Adam Smith’s Moral Sentiments in Vanity Fair </i>(Springer, forthcoming), brings Smith’s <i>Theory of Moral Sentiments</i> into conversation with 19<sup>th</sup> Century English novels to explore the role of vanity in commercial society. Slegers’ current research focuses on the role of the emotions (in particular shame) in moral decision-making and the uncanny existential implications of technological developments.</div><p></p><br>
<p>According to Adam Smith, vanity is a vice that contains a promise: a vain person is much more likely than a person with low self-esteem to accomplish great things. Problematic as it may be from a moral perspective, vanity makes a person more likely to succeed in business, politics and other public pursuits. “The great secret of education,” Smith writes, “is to direct vanity to proper objects:” this peculiar vice can serve as a stepping-stone to virtue. How can this transformation be accomplished and what might go wrong along the way? What exactly&nbsp;<i>is</i>&nbsp;vanity and how does it factor into our personal and professional lives, for better and for worse?</p><div>This book brings Smith’s&nbsp;<i>Theory of Moral Sentiments</i>&nbsp;into conversation with William Makepeace Thackeray’s&nbsp;<i>Vanity Fair&nbsp;</i>to offer an analysis of vanity and the objects (proper and otherwise) to which it may be directed. Leading the way through the literary case study presented here<i>&nbsp;</i>is Becky Sharp, the ambitious and cunning protagonist of Thackeray’s novel. Becky is joined by a number of other 19<sup>th</sup>&nbsp;Century literary heroines – drawn from the novels of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot – whose feminine (and feminist) perspectives complement Smith’s astute observations and complicate his account of vanity<i>.</i>&nbsp;The fictional characters featured in this volume enrich and deepen our understanding of Smith’s work and disclose parts of our own experience in a fresh way, revealing the dark and at times ridiculous aspects of life in Vanity Fair, today as in the past.</div>
Provides an innovative perspective on business ethics education Shows the role of Adam Smith's moral sentiments in contemporary business ethics Provides a literary business case study exploring the tension between "doing well" and "doing good"

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